By
1955 film noir was nearing the completion of its ‘cycle’
(generally held to end with 1958’s Touch of Evil - thereafter we’re talking ‘revival’ or neo-noir).
So it’s not surprising to find this late entrant is surprisingly
modern: crime is now corporatised and suspects wind up dead
(by the hands of suspicious associates) after being merely visited
by the protagonist cop, a neurotically obsessive loner. In the
1940s a visit from Bogart meant he would rough you up himself.
That’s not to portray The Big Combo as some antediluvian
Dirty Harry. With cameraman John Alton’s cinematography
mapping its highlights this flick is unmistakably noir. Its
plot turn to unearth the meaning behind one whispered name –
‘Alicia’ - is not only explicitly Kane-esque, but
in tune with noir ’s preoccupation with memory and buried
secrets.
But the more graphic violence for which it is now remembered
is undeniably a link to what would soon become staple fare.
The torture scene centering on a hearing aid is as brutal -
and eccentric - as Roman Polanski’s nose job on Jack Nicholson
in Chinatown some twenty years later.
Director Joseph H.Lewis is best known for Gun
Crazy, a late-40s precursor to His-and-Hers crime sprees
like Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands. Away from
Alton’s bravura compositions, which kick in right from
the opening titles (themselves an adrenalin rush of nighttime
cityscapes and melodramatic 50s jazz) the film’s exposition
is static, even flat at times. My theory is that cinematographer
Alton effectively directed the film’s highlights. For
chilling point-of-view can anything top the silent barking of
the assassins’ tommy guns as the victim’s hearing
aid is ripped away? Alton’s fingerprints are also undeniably
all over The Big Combo’s famous final shot where,
echoing Casablanca, the two survivors walk together
(but not touching) side by side into the all-enveloping fog
that is their future.